Strange Exchange
by Gomro Morskopp
Summary: COMPLETE.  Desperate to restore her ruined life, Adrena Lynn makes a demonic deal...  Warning! Character death and some kigo-ish goings-on will be among the terrors of the finished story!
1. Chapter 1: Terrible Transaction

Disclaimer: If you saw it on TV, I don't own it. Soundtrack for this story: the album _Barbaro (ma non troppo)_ by Present, something I'm pretty sure is forbidden in the Magic Kingdom.

* * *

The young redhaired woman drove on through the night, impelled by all-consuming fear. The car she'd stolen was nothing compared to the Sloth, but that remarkable vehicle was long gone. Undoubtedly the law was already looking for her, but she had to get back to Waite. Had to. There had to be some way to undo what they'd done.

She should have been enjoying the good life. That had been the plan. Instead she was alone, racing the clock, hoping for a miracle. How could it all have gone so wrong in so little time? A year to the day.

Tears ran down her cheeks, blurred her vision.

She remembered Egbert Waite's ramshackle cottage on the outskirts of the town. Remembered the kids bolting from the yard; evidently they'd been peering through the small windows, trying to catch a glimpse of the old man's rumored sorcery.

Most people considered him a fraud, though they wouldn't say it to his face. She had reason to believe otherwise.

His first words to her had been demanding; he did not work for free. "You have the money?"

For answer she reached into the bag, withdrew the wad of bills. She wished she could forget what she'd done to obtain it, but it really didn't matter. Very soon all the bad decisions of her past would be behind her.

They'd be someone else's problem.

Waite's withered claw closed on the money; he began to count it, slowly, methodically. The agony of withdrawal tore at her guts as she fidgeted in the shaky wooden chair. She'd been so long without a fix. She couldn't afford it. The warlock was holding every cent she had.

"It's all there," she blurted. "_It's all there!_ Every penny. I promise."

Waite scowled. "You've waited this long, little lady. You can wait a little longer. And since I've lost count, I guess I'll have to start over."

She almost blacked out before he finished; his harsh voice snapped her back to reality. "Right. All here. Now listen. When the incantation begins, there is no going back, and it can only be done once."

"Why?"

"Because you only have one soul to sell. Do you understand? Once you have bargained with Duke Akylbas, you belong to him. At your death, he will claim what is his. He is a lesser demon in the hellish hierarchy, but that's the price of all magic. I made my bargain with his Master, many, many years ago."

Thoughts of fire, torture and eternity came back to her, echoes of her Baptist childhood. Deceitful devils and wrath of God. She almost stood up, almost walked out.

Almost.

"Okay. Okay. Whaddaya need, blood?" She held out her arm, marred with needle tracks. "Give me the blade or whatever you use. I'll do it myself."

"No blood. This isn't Hollywood. It doesn't work that way. Akylbas himself will seal the deal."

"Fur-eaky."

He was turning down the antique lamps. "Quite." An old black and white television was barking out the news; Waite clicked it off. "TV is my only modern weakness. I recall when the telegraph was the marvel of the age. Never did master the code, though. Too many other things on my plate. Do you watch _Agony County_?"

"No. Not really." She hadn't owned a television for years.

"A fascinating show." He peered at her through squinted eyes, as if only now seeing her. "I believe you had a brief TV career yourself, didn't you? A few years ago, perhaps?"

The boyish blonde shuddered. "Please. I – I'm sick. Can we just get on with it?"

"Yes," said the warlock, his ancient face in shadow. "Yes, I believe we can." He sat down opposite her at the table. "Whatever happens, obey me to the letter. Or your soul will go with Akylbas _this evening_. Understand?"

She nodded. Without further adieu the warlock made a strange sign with his left hand, a motion that left a dimly glowing symbol hovering in the air, slowly fading from view. "Mighty Akylbas, commander of seven legions, Grand Duke of Transformations, come to me. One desires to be another." A sign with the right hand, a repetition of the simple words.

Above the table a shimmering darkness began to collect, a fusion of opposites that had no right to exist. It spread spiral tentacles throughout the room.

Waite continued his spell.

Slowly the absurdity of her situation crept over her: sitting in a dismal little room, surrounded by musty, crumbling books and weird old artifacts, watching a crazy old man do creepy parlor tricks. Her heart sank within her.

She pushed the chair back.

Volcanic fire erupted from the eerie blot as a gigantic, misshapen figure reared up from its center, clad in blazing armor, its eyes searing red slits, long, stringy hair and tangled beard smouldering. In its left hand was a black candle, which it sternly presented to Adrena Lynn.

"Take the candle, before it changes its mind," hissed the old man. "Claim it through Gelulath Vorah."

She couldn't move. Never dreamed it would be this terrible. The Grand Duke snarled, revealing red hot teeth of iron, a seared and blackened tongue. If it spoke, the sound of its voice would kill her, she knew.

"I – I can't. _I can't_! _You_ take it!"

"_You_ must do it, or the spell will fail. Take it in the name of Gelulath Vorah!" The warlock's sharp whisper held a tinge of fear. "_Do as I say_!"

She watched her trembling hand close around the candle. "I accept this – gift, Duke Akylbas, in the name of... of Gelulath Vorah." _Whatever that may be. _

Instantly, silently, Akylbas was gone. The eerie void that had admitted the Grand Duke to this world collapsed on itself, vanished.

With no more concern than a man leaving the dinner table, Waite stood up, turned his television on. "Well. That's it for him. Figured his number was up. "

Adrena Lynn was still in her chair. She wasn't sure if she could ever leave it. "W-what?"

"The West Virginian senator. Been in office since 1959." Akylbas was already forgotten. To Waite, invoking demons was just another day's work. "Now the vultures will start circling. Politics is a dirty business, Miss Lynn. Steer clear of it. It's the devil's playground."

"Uh – you bet." She turned the candle over and over, amazed at what she saw. Stars and galaxies floated deep within its ebon form. For a moment, even drugs were forgotten. "Now what?"

"Return to your home. Take the candle with you. At precisely three am, let three drops of its wax fall on your left wrist, then burn a picture of the target in its flame." The warlock paused in tending to his oil lamps, fixed the woman with his rheumy gaze. "I would highly suggest checking the time against the atomic clock, if you have Internet access."

Was the old man that dense? "Yeah, well, that's not gonna happen."

"Remember, you get one chance at this."

Six years earlier, Adrena Lynn had been on top of the world. She had been a media star, a daredevil specializing in death-defying stunts. And if she faked it all, who cared? It was no worse than TV wrestling, less predatory than the televangelist racket.

"Be sure this is what you want."

She wasn't a mad Teutonic scientist with no indoor voice, or a monstrous batrachian mutant, or a snarky comet-powered supervillain. She had no designs on the world. There had been absolutely no reason for Kim Possible to interfere with her life.

"Be sure of your target."

And yet the cheerleader hero had ruined her, disgraced her, destroyed her. She couldn't get a job. She couldn't have a life. It was all Kim Possible's fault. She knew Possible was in college now, nineteen or twenty years old, never even wondering what happened to Adrena Lynn. Very soon, though, she'd find out. Maybe Possible had forgotten her, but she hadn't forgotten Possible. Destroying her had become her reason for living.

"Oh, I'm _absolutely_ sure of my _target_, Egbert." The old man grimaced, but Adrena didn't care. She had what she'd come for. "It's gonna be _freaky,_" she said as she left.

She had been unprepared for the intensity of the wax's searing heat on her wrist, but she didn't scream, just barely flinched. Should have expected it. It was from _hell_, after all. Then came the picture, a tattered cover from _Humans_ magazine. Why she'd hung onto it, she couldn't say. Sometimes, drifting in narcotic heaven, she took it out, imagining all the ways she wanted Kim Possible to hurt.

How good it would be to wake up whole and well and strong, and know that the woman she hated more than anyone else in the world would awaken in this body, unable to understand what had happened, torn apart by the need for the drug.

The oily flame spread quickly across the page, consuming the young woman's image. Adrena Lynn stumbled, fell to the ground; though there was no breeze at all in her tiny, squalid apartment, the ashes drifted across her still figure. Something laughed.

She woke to the sound of someone knocking on the door, a voice calling a name that wasn't hers. "Kim? Kim, are you in there?" The air smelled so nice. The bed was so comfortable. There had been no bed in the hovel she'd lived in for so long.

"Kim?"

She ran to the mirror, admired herself. The hair had to go. She liked it short, butch, not long and girly. She looked at her strong young hands, at her smooth, unmarked arms, at the curves of her athlete's body. It was a dream, a dream, and yet she knew it was real.

Everything was so clean, so new, so perfect. There, on the shelf, among the books: the famous Kimmunicator. And what was the Internet genius' name? Wade something. Oh yes, she'd learned a lot about Kim over the years, never imagining how important that knowledge would be.

Not that she had any intention of trying to be Kim Possible. She had much better plans than that.

She opened the door, knowing who would be there. Ron Stoppable, the sidekick turned boyfriend turned fiancé. She'd seen it on a tabloid cover. She drank in the look of him, the scent of him, the beauty of him. Football hero. Martial arts master. Tears filled her eyes as she embraced him, so excited to feel his strong body against hers. It had been so long, so terribly long.

"_Whoa_, KP. W – what's _wrong_, honey?"

_Honey_. "Nothing," she choked out, amazed at the strangeness of her voice. "Nothing. Everything is just right." _And maybe you can come along for the ride. _


	2. Chapter 2: Freaky Flashbacks

Disclaimer: If you saw it on TV, I don't own it. Soundtrack for this chapter: _Mediterranean Tales _by Triumvirat, something I'm pretty sure is illegal in Middleton.

* * *

Slowly the car drifted into the wrong lane; Adrena woke with a stifled cry as the huge diesel roared past on the right, scraping the guard rail, horn blaring, tires throwing dirt and gravel up in its wake. She'd been driving for ten hours straight, and the illness was increasing its deadly grip as well. If she got killed on the road, she'd be just as dead as she would be if she didn't reach Waite before the deadline.

The next exit led to a state forest; about a mile into the woods she pulled over, shut off the engine. Tried to rest. She couldn't go to sleep. She _wouldn't _go to sleep. She just needed a break. Just a few minutes. No choice.

She closed her eyes. A moment later she was dreaming.

"_Kim!" Ron's voice got higher when he was angry, something that really annoyed her. "Wade says you're taking down the website."_

"_Yeah. __It's time to grow up." Adrena looked at the young man with distaste. He'd helped her with a lot of things, in those first few weeks, but now he was a nuisance. Unnecessary baggage from Kim Possible's life. "That was kid stuff. If you haven't noticed, we're not kids any more." _

_"There's more going on here than that. __That phone call I got – "_

"_There are a lot of freaky people out there." She knew exactly who it had been. Kim Possible, trapped in that addicted, broken body, unable to understand what had happened, unable to call for help. __She'd been so incoherent that Stoppable hung up on her. That was fine. She deserved it. _

_"Yeah, but you didn't even care. You didn't want to find out who it was."_

_"It was some crazy person. Some lunatic. I'm tired of dealing with everything that goes wrong in the world. It's time to give it a rest, Ron."_

_" What about Team Possible? This is everything we've worked for."_

_"It might be everything you've worked for, but I want something better. Team Possible's over. Here." She handed him something, watched with barely concealed pleasure as he realized what he held. "That's over, too."_

"_You – you don't mean it." He held her engagement ring in her hand; a tear fell across it. "Kim, please don't do this to me. I love you!" _

_"I don't love you, Ron. Maybe I thought I did, once, but I don't." She laughed as the tears left trails on his cheeks. He deserved this, too; he'd been as responsible for her downfall as his fiancée. Maybe even more. She couldn't resist one final line, one last twist of the knife. "Could be that you're just not funny any more."_

* * *

She tossed and turned in the seat, her breathing hard and heavy. Finally the discomfort seemed to pass; a little smile played across her lips.

* * *

"_This is great! Fantastic!" Michael Eisenberg, president of Sidney Studios, held up the contract and grinned. "A talk show with Kim Possible herself as host. Man. Man. This'll be a gold mine, honey. A gold mine."_

_Eisenberg was a guy who knew money when he saw it. He had green-lighted her reality show all those years ago, when she was blonde and butch and the next big thing. Looked the other way when she started faking the more extreme stunts. Expected her to go far. And she would have, if not for Kim Possible. Now that name, these looks were going to jumpstart her new career._

_She decided to play him a little. "Do you really think so? I mean, I've never done anything like that before. It was just an idea."_

"_Absolutely. Everybody in the world loves ya, baby. It's a natural. Genius. Sheer genius. It'll be the best move you ever made." He held out his hand; she shook it timidly, as if she wasn't used to all this. "And a lot less dangerous than fighting crime."_

"_I hope you're right. I'm tired of dodging missiles for a living." She smiled, the beautiful Kim Possible smile. "That stuff was fur-eaky." Immediately she knew she'd blundered._

"_What?" Eisenberg's eyes narrowed. "What was that?"_

"_Way out."_

"_Yeah, ok, let's drop 'freaky' from the vocab, dig? You don't want people connecting you with Adrena Lynn." He leaned over toward her, the smell of Jack Daniels on his breath. "That chick was crazy. Meshuga, you understand? I knew she was gonna be trouble the moment we signed her up."_

_She choked back her anger and nodded._

* * *

The sun glared through the windshield; she rolled over, threw her arm up over her eyes. Gasped out a word in her fitful sleep. A name.

* * *

"_Shego?" Everyone on the planet knew Shego. Knew how dangerous she was. What was she doing here? How'd she get in? Alarms should have been clanging all over the West Coast. A-Number-1 Security Systems would have a serious lawsuit on their hands very shortly. If she survived this._

_The beautiful woman smiled, handed her a drink. "Not here to fight, Kimmie. We've put all that behind us. Haven't we?" She wasn't wearing her infamous harlequin outfit; the dress she wore accented her lissome figure without lapsing into tastelessness. "Looks like you've got a head start on me. Lingered in the Green Room a little too long, maybe?"_

"_Yeah. Green Room." D__rinks and drugs were easy to get in the business, and the runaway success of her show had given her all the money she could ever need. So the ratings had dropped a little recently. Big deal. Eisenberg had warned her that she was losing her audience. The tabloid stories and photos were poisoning her reputation. What did he know? Two-faced bastard. She couldn't lose her audience. She was Kim Possible now. She could do anything._

"_Kim," said the older woman, "when I was a good guy, for a little while, you and I got to know each other pretty well. I was about to tell you something when your boyfriend ruined the whole thing for us. Remember?"_

"_He's not my boyfriend any more." She giggled. "We broke up."_

_Shego reached out, took her hand. "You know what I was going to tell you?" Her face close to Adrena's. Those big green eyes... "Would you like to know?"_

_Was she trying to come on to her? "Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to know." _

* * *

Red sunset was spreading across the mountain horizon. Sweat rolled down her brow, despite the evening chill in the air. She moaned.

* * *

_She woke the next morning to find Shego gone. Not surprising. It had been a wild night. She was still a little drained; her head hurt, and she felt sore all over. A cold, maybe, or the flu coming on. Her eyes fell on a note, propped against the alarm clock; with a smile she reached out and took it. _

"_Cupcake,_

_No one could be as goody-two-shoes as you pretend to be. Of course the tabloids have been making that pretty clear. But I've really known it for a long time. Since the night the L'il Diablo project went south. When you kicked me into the signal tower. You enjoyed that. You enjoyed watching me burn in the current. Remember, Kimmie? You wanted me to die."_

_She didn't, of course. She remembered the L'il Diablos: tiny toys that became monstrous robots at the command of the diabolical scientist Dr. Drakken. She remembered hiding in the basement of an abandoned building, shaking with terror, till it was all over. Remembered that Kim Possible had stopped it. More applause, more accolades. More pictures in newspapers and magazines. _

_How she hated the girl._

_"But __I survived. You won't. I stole the encapsulated virus from a lab so top-secret that it officially does not exist. Painted my nails with it. Not contagious, but there is no cure. Sure wonder who thought that up. And why. There are some scary people out there, Kim." _

_The headache was getting worse by the moment. _

"_Tomorrow night we take over the world. Our new relationship has improved things a lot. Now I make the plans, and Dr.D. builds the stuff. Put a new spin on some leftover Lorwardian technology. Call it L'il Diablo II. You'll probably live just long enough to see it happen. We attack a city, a real city, not some little burg like Middleton. Destroy some landmarks, kill some people, hit the road and make our demands. Repeat as needed until the world gets the point. The machines are invincible."_

_The scratches on her back throbbed with pain. Like a bee sting. Spider bite. _

_"Someone will say 'Team Possible will save us.' But guess what? You dropped Stoppable, and I'm dropping you. In your tracks. No more Team Possible. Shego and Drakken rule the world together, forever. __I hate the sound of the word 'queen,' though. I'm leaning more toward 'Supreme One.' Do you like that, pumpkin? D can come up with his own title. Probably something imaginative, like 'King Drakken.' He doesn't know I did this, btw. He never will. It wasn't about him. It was about you and me. _

_Love ya, Kimmie. I win._

_P.S. About last night – don't fool yourself. You really weren't all that." _

_She threw the note down as if it had become a rattlesnake. Felt the walls close in around her, the whole world turn on her. What could she do? What could anyone do? The flu-like pain was digging deeper; her heart and lungs ached with every beat, every breath._

"_Trapped – "she told the empty room. The face of the woman she despised stared back at her from the wall mirror, scared and alone. There was a time when she would have sold her soul to see that look on Possible's face; she had, and it was all dust and ashes. Shego didn't know Adrena Lynn, had no reason to assault her, had no design on her life. She had poisoned Kim Possible, not Adrena Lynn. Now Adrena was dying, and it was all Kim Possible's fault. _

_With a ragged, wordless cry she slung the alarm clock across the room at the reflection; unlike the movies, it simply struck the mirror and fell to the floor. Screaming, she attacked the image, pounding the mirror with her fists –_

- and woke up, sick and aching. The dash clock read 6:15. She'd lost three hours. Three hours. In a panic she started the car, pulled out with a screech of tires. Waite. Waite was her only chance. There had to be a way to reverse the transfer. To put Kim Possible back in this body, and give her back her own.

And if he didn't agree, the pistol that lay beneath her seat would have to convince him.


	3. Chapter 3: Pernicious Plans

Disclaimer: If you saw it on TV, I don't own it. Soundtrack for this chapter: _Turn of the Screw_ by Hail, something I'm pretty sure is not on Kim's list of favorites.

* * *

The hidden door rolled open in the side of the mountain; four robotic giants stood there in the moonlight, roughly humanoid in form, bristling with armament. Green, blue, yellow, red.

Inside the green machine, Shego clicked switches, checked gauges, ran a quick diagnostic. All systems go.

A voice, thin and whiny, suddenly filled her headphone: "Yellow? This looks awful. It looks like scrambled eggs, you know, when they aren't completely cooked, and there's that yellow stuff running out of them that puts you off your breakfast. I didn't know it was gonna be yellow. I thought that was, you know, like the _base coat_. If this works, and I'm not saying it _won't_, first thing we do is paint this some other color. I'm thinking maybe some sort of really deep _purple_, I'm sure it's got a name, not ultraviolet, just can't think of it right –"

"Lucre," she snarled, "shut up." She hadn't wanted to bring the bargain-basement villain into the project, but Drakken had insisted. Despite the awful time they'd had in prison together, Dr.D still respected Frugal Lucre, not least because of the support he'd shown him after the Lorwardian attack.

It didn't take much to earn Drakken's loyalty. Unfortunately. But she'd work on that.

Another voice chimed in, loud and obnoxious. "Yo! Green! This red hot mecha is ready to rock." He pronounced it "rawk," of course. "Seriously."

She didn't bother to answer. Motor Ed hadn't been on her guest list, either, especially after the way he'd played her during the Kepler debacle, tricking her into dressing like a cheap floozy in an Ed Wood film just to fulfill his own prurient interests. But he _was_ D's cousin, and he _did_ have experience with operating machines like these.

There weren't too many other villains she trusted, to be honest. Ed might be chauvinist and egotistic, and Lucre might need air brakes for his jaws, but she sensed that somewhere under all that idiocy they reveled in evil as much as she did.

That was what she needed.

She clicked her mike to private. "Dr. D, you ready?"

"This is great, Shego. This is gonna be just like old times again." He sounded so excited. She was so happy for him. "I still think the plan needs a name. Operation Mechanical Mayhem. What do you think?"

_Oy. Not again_. "No names," she snapped. "Names are goofy. We aren't goofy. We're serious. Goofy's got no place in the new world order."

There was a long silence. She rolled her eyes, knowing already what was coming.

"Shego?" He sounded like a timid child, asking his mother for a new toy.

"Yes?" Sometimes she wondered why she loved him. Sometimes she knew the reason didn't matter.

"I'm going to _think_ of it as Operation Mechanical Mayhem. That's ok, isn't it?"

"Sure. Yeah, that's fine, Dr. D." She'd really dreamed this whole thing up just for him. Soon, when they controlled the earth, he could have all the prestige, power and glory that he wanted. That he _deserved_. She'd be content to run things from behind the scenes, and enjoy his happiness and success as self-styled King of the World.

Wouldn't it be great if Kimmie lived long enough to see it happen. See it through her pain and delirium, fever and fear, and know that she couldn't do a thing to stop it.

That would be perfect.

She snapped the microphone back to normal. "Let's go, boys. Showtime."

A moment later the machines roared into the sky.

* * *

The ancient warlock was watching television when the front door flew open and the woman staggered in, drenched in sweat, eyes shadowed, unstable on her feet. Despite her new body, he recognized her instantly; such discernment was part of his craft.

He was also completely uninterested in her or her situation. "Miss Lynn, please sit down and be quiet. Big things are happening in Washington. Live broadcast. Amazing, the things they can do with technology these days."

"H – Help me." She stepped forward, almost fell. "You have to help me."

"There is no help for you. I thought I made that abundantly clear." He turned back to his little television. Four gigantic machines were striding irresistibly through the capital, leaving a holocaust of destruction in their wake. "Whatever you've done to yourself, it's your problem."

"Not my fault. Hers. It's always hers." She raised the pistol, pointed it at Waite's head. "Summon the demon. _Make_ him reverse it."

"Grand Duke Akylbas _is_ a lesser demon, but it would be remarkably foolhardy to _demand_ anything of him. I haven't lived this long by making blunders of that magnitude." Unperturbed by the gun, Waite turned back to his television, still talking. "I had wondered what was going on with Kim Possible, though. That talk show of hers was just awful. Awful, awful, awful."

The pistol shook in Adrena's hand. She staggered, almost blacked out, caught herself.

"She used to be such a nice young woman." On the little screen, a tank flew through the air, turning end over end, before it crashed into a building and exploded. "Very helpful in a pinch."

* * *

The emerald giant reached up, ignoring the shells that ricocheted from its Lorwardian alloy form, snatched a helicopter out of the air and threw it viciously into the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Inside the monstrous machine, Shego grinned demonically, the sheer joy of wanton destruction coursing through her like electricity.

"Shego, what was that for?" Dr.D sounded close to panic. "This is terrible! _There are dead people in the streets_!"

She blasted a city block with devastating laser fire. "Is this on the private line?"

"Of course."

"You're worried about _hurting_ people after all you've done? Did you grow a conscience last night in your sleep?"

"I'm used to, you know, sitting in the _lair_ and directing things. Or letting _you_ handle the fighting and stuff. Not like _this_."

She glanced at the topological readout. The yellow mecha was off in the distance, smashing Smarty Marts and Best Buys with abandon. Lucre must have built up quite a grudge against the retail sector. Motor Ed had just crushed the Kutze Bridge, heading for the Washington Monument, grabbing up cars and tanks and throwing them at random targets along the way.

The blue machine was wandering aimlessly around the city, half-heartedly breaking street lights and stomping the occasional parked and unoccupied car.

It figured. "D, this isn't that sort of plan." She spoke slowly, teacher to student. "We lay waste to a big city, we go back to the lair, we make our demands. If all we do is smash a few _mailboxes_, no one is gonna take us seriously." She opened up on a fleeing crowd with searing induction beams. "This isn't a cartoon. This is _real life_. People get killed in real life."

"Hey, She-babe! Watch this!" bellowed Motor Ed in her ear. A second later the Washington Monument crumbled and collapsed; the mecha grabbed a section of it like a baseball bat, smacked a copter out of the air. "Heavy metal, baby! Seriously!" In spite of herself, she was impressed. Why couldn't Drew be more like that?

"Dr. D, just make for the White House. We'll all meet you there." A strange tenderness crept into her voice. "Just let me handle it. Everything's gonna be ok. Just like the old days." In the old days, Team Possible would already be underfoot, but that wasn't happening tonight. "Pretty soon: 'King Drakken!' Eyes on the prize, D!"

"If you say so." The blue giant lumbered down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Men. There was no understanding them. Shego spun her machine around, launching a salvo of missiles at the Capitol. "All units," she called, "rendezvous at the White House in ten minutes. Phase One is complete."

* * *

Adrena's finger tightened on the trigger. "I'm dying."

"Everyone's dying. It's called entropy. Only sorcery can check that. And it has its own drawbacks."

"Shego poisoned me. I've got nothing to lose."

"Look at that." He motioned to the television. "I remember when the crossbow was the ultimate weapon. Some people thought it would end war forever. Some people," he said, smiling a nearly toothless smile at Adrena and her pistol, "are incredibly stupid."

"I mean it. I-I'll shoot. You have to do something now. _Now_!"

The warlock laughed, a noxious tittering. "If you shoot me, how can I help you? You haven't thought this through. That's been your problem all your life, girl. You don't think things through."

"Wrong." On a shelf above the old man's chair rested an octopus-headed, bat-winged idol, made of ebony and emerald. She pointed the gun at it, pulled the trigger. The grotesque eidolon burst into a thousand pieces, raining down on the warlock and his television. "Help me."

Waite jumped to his feet, incredibly fast for one so aged. "You little _fool_!" shrieked the old man. "Do you have any _idea_ what you've done? That was _irreplaceable_!"

"I don't care." Another shot. A huge glass jar containing something misshapen and dead shattered, spilling its loathsome contents across the floor. The stench of formaldehyde filled the cottage. "_Help me_!"

"You little wretch! You will not destroy my treasures! _I won't allow it_! " He lunged at her just as she fired again; with an ugly, phlegmy cough he clutched his suddenly bloody stomach, cursing her. His eyes rolled back as he collapsed to the floor. Plump overgrown maggots wriggled from the wound, devouring the flesh that spawned them. In moments the body was engulfed in the swarming vermin. Stinking smoke rose from the squirming mass.

She stepped back, dropped the pistol, transfixed by the horror of the warlock's grisly demise.

"She shot him! She shot him!" came a cry from outside. The neighborhood kids. Spying again. Standing right in the open doorway. She hadn't even noticed them. She spun, stumbled, and fell. Tried to get up and couldn't.

The television continued to squall. Continuing live report from Washington, D.C. Giant robots in the streets. Shego and Drakken, Frugal Lucre and Motor Ed. Terrorist demands. Weapons were useless. Soldiers annihilated. Anti-aircraft rays sought out, destroyed the planes and copters that crowded the air.

Adrena Lynn stared at the television screen, unable to look away.

Without fanfare or warning a young man jumped out of the shadows, shattered the nearly invulnerable leg of the green mecha with a terrific kick, surrounded by blue ch'i energy. The machine stumbled, crumpled to the ground; as it fell Shego sprang from its cockpit, livid with fury. Plasma bolts battered Ron Stoppable, flung him through the air into a wall.

The lethal harlequin moved in for the kill, only to be surprised by an attack from above.

A living cyclone entered the fray, catapulting herself into the air, dodging Shego's bolts, avoiding her claws. Clad in some sort of gold-and-black cybersuit, its powers reminiscent of the Battlesuit worn by Kim Possible in her last year as a superhero. Landing blow after blow, kick after kick, until the criminal lay unconscious in the street, sprawled beside her fallen mecha.

As Stoppable assaulted Motor Ed's war machine, the camera zoomed in on Shego's conqueror, catching her for just a second before she joined Ron in the attack.

Sirens wailed to a stop outside; policemen burst into the room. "My God," one of them choked out, "that's Kim Possible." He knelt, tried to help the young woman. Some of them looked at the blackened, burned skeleton on the floor beside her, watched a few maggots fall from the bones, wondering what had happened here tonight.

They would never know.

The dying redhead laughed weakly. "Look at her. She gets all the breaks. Always. Not fair."

"Who?"

She whimpered something, maybe "impossible." Looked back at the little tv, watching it as her heart pounded out its final fitful beats. Watched as a new heroic duo risked their lives to stop the enemies of freedom.

Ron Stoppable and Adrena Lynn.

"That - that long hair," gasped Kim Possible, with her last breath, "has got to go."


	4. Chapter 4: Enlightening Epilogue

Disclaimer: If you saw it on TV, I don't own it. Soundtrack for this final chapter was _Aquarius_ by Haken, particularly the last track, "Celestial Elixir."

* * *

As always, they were together, though it was in the back of a special Global Justice transport, on their way to a top-secret ultra-maximum security prison. "So what happened to Lucre and Motor Ed?" asked Shego.

"I saw Ed hop a passing freight when his mecha went down. No idea about Lucre. He's good at getting lost in the crowd."

"Stoppable smash your machine, too?" She snarled. "I almost had him, but his new girlfriend showed up."

"I know. I came back to help you."

"She knocked me cold. It was like fighting a hurricane." _Almost like fighting Kim Possible_, she thought. _But there'll be no more of that._

"I tried to flatten her. She dodged the mecha's fist, ran up its arm, got inside it at the shoulder joint and started playing with circuits. Next thing I knew, the control centre was on fire. Nothing to do but eject. _Then_ Stoppable got me." He sighed, resigned to another prison stay. "It was the L'il Diablo fiasco all over again. I _did_ know his name this time, but I _pretended_ not to. Why should I give him the satisfaction?"

"L'il Diablo II. That's what I told _her_ to call it."

"Told who? The blonde? Why?"

She didn't seem to hear him. "That's what I wrote. 'Call it L'il Diablo II.'"

"You said plan names were _goofy_."

A single tear rolled down the green woman's cheek. "I guess that's what it was."

"Shego," asked the blue man, concern in his voice, "are you all right?"

This shouldn't have happened," she cried, twisting in her bonds. The special diffuser handcuffs flickered with blue light, converting her plasma bolts to harmless static discharge. "_This shouldn't have happened_. I took care of _everything_. Every little detail." She fixed Drakken with a teary, shattered gaze. "I took care of Kimmie, too."

"What?"

"I killed her."

He was unable to speak. Sat there with his mouth open, until he realized how ridiculous he must look to the GJ men in the cab, watching via camera. " Possible's d – dead? How? "

She sidestepped the question. "I won." There was no triumph in her voice.

He regarded her with new admiration. "Of course you did. You _had_ to, sooner or later. Did you _gloat_?"

"I left her a bon-voyage note."

"Wonderful. Some sort of death trap, I guess?"

"While we were attacking Washington, she was dying. That's how I planned it. She'd live just long enough to see our victory."

"Oh, that's delicious, Shego. Delicious." He was so proud of her.

Her fragile composure began to crack. "I wanted it to be a _surprise_. I wanted you to see it on the news, and never know I was involved. A grand coincidence. Destiny placing its seal on your reign." She sniffed and sobbed and managed to pull herself together. " A present for your Coronation Day, King Drakken. I did it all for you. I wanted – I wanted to give you the world."

"It's ok, honey. It's all right." He wanted to hold her, to comfort her, but the bonds would not permit it. "It was a great plan. It was the best plan _ever_. I know I messed it up, getting squeamish on you – "

"No! No! I mean, it was _irritating_, but I should have seen it coming." She giggled a little, through her tears. " You faint at the sight of blood. I even have to grill the steaks when we have a cookout."

Drakken's eyes went wide. "Promise me you won't tell anyone. Think of my _street cred_!"

"Street cred." A little laugh. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry it all went so wrong."

He leaned over, averting his face from the camera in the vehicle's ceiling, whispering. "They can separate us, but they can't divide us. Not any more. We know where our strength lies. We know where our loyalty lies. GJ will screw up, sooner or later. They always do. And when they do, we'll leave that jail together. And the next time, we'll walk over top of them all. Together." He paused, said the words that had once been impossible for him. No more. Said them out loud, not caring who heard them. Wanting to tell the world. "I love you, Shego."

_Last night I wondered why I loved him_, thought the green girl. _This is why_.

The GJ transport drove on through the countryside. Just beyond the next hill, prison searchlights cast their beams into the night sky, reaching for the stars.

* * *

As always, they were together, this time on _Early Morning Today_, discussing the attack on Washington and, of course, Kim's inexplicable transformation. "There are so many people who helped me get through this," Kim told the interviewer. "I couldn't have made it without them."

A cameraman circled the set, getting a better shot of the new Kim Possible. Not sure if he really believed the story she'd just told.

"My family, of course. I have the best parents ever."

Sharp cut to her mother and father sitting in the audience, tears on their cheeks.

"Tweebs, I'm gonna say it – I love you."

The camera zoomed in on two empty seats; her brothers were on the roof of the studio, setting up a skyrocket of their own design. Their plan was to fire it just as Kim left the building, saluting her with a gigantic display of pyrotechnics.

Steve Barkin would leave the studio just in time to see it crash into his new Yaris and explode. Some day he would learn: if the Possibles were involved, call a cab.

Unaware of her brothers' machinations, Kim continued. "Dr. Cyrus Bortel, who designed this cybersuit." She pulled back the sleeve of her blouse to reveal the molecule-thin gold and black circuitry. More than a weapon, it did the job her compromised immune system could not. "He was working with Global Justice. They've invested a lot of time and resources in me. Are we allowed to mention them?"

"Probably not," joked the interviewer. She wouldn't be joking later that day, when the men in black showed up.

Kim looked at the young man beside her, took his hand. If there had been any question about their relationship, those questions were answered. "And you, Ron. I – I just want to thank you for believing me – believing _in_ me."

There were oohs and aahs throughout the audience.

Two hours later they were sitting in the car, up on Lovers' Peak, looking out over the city, the radio playing softly as they cuddled. Ron couldn't quit going over the mission of the week before. "You knocked it out of the ballpark, KP. And you were worried about pulling it off. Shego never knew what hit her."

"Ron," she said, quietly, "can you just listen a moment?"

"Shoot."

"She's dead."

He was appalled. "No, she's not. They took her away with Drakken."

"Not Shego, Ron! Forget about the mission, ok? Adrena Lynn's dead. Dead and buried. I'll never get my old body back." Part of the reason she'd agreed to the _EMT_ interview was to try clearing up all the confusion Lynn's death had caused. "And I don't know if anyone believes me."

"I do. You know I do."

"I called you once. Right after it happened. You hung up on me."

"Kim, I'm – I'm sorry! I didn't _know_ it was you. You were standing right beside me, or at least I _thought_ you were. And the girl on the phone wasn't making any sense – you know that's true – then you were telling me to hang up – except it was her – "

"I'm not mad. I understand. Just tell me one thing: when did you know?"

"I – I knew when you broke up with me. When _she_ broke up with me. She handed me the ring, Kim, and she didn't feel a thing. Made fun of me. I looked in her eyes, and there was nothing there. To her, it was like taking off an old coat. I knew that whoever this was, it wasn't you. I had Wade put out some feelers."

"He believed you."

"No, he thought I was three toppings short a naco grande. But that's happened before. When I tried to warn everyone at the prom about the L'il Diablos, you were the only one who listened."

_Not at first_, she thought, ashamed that she'd doubted him. "Point taken."

"So it was one more time around the crazy tree. Wade mentioned _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ a lot. Got pretty snarky about it. Never saw that movie. Never intend to."

"So he started searching."

"He started searching. We got a reverse lookup on that phone call."

"It was a pay phone."

"It didn't matter. We started searching from there. I knew I could find you. And I did."

She remembered it as if waking from a nightmare; curled up in a corner, passing in and out of consciousness, every waking moment filled with pain and delirium, unable to understand what had happened. And then she had looked up, and he was there, the Wadebot behind him. He touched her cheek, gently called her name.

"How did you know, Ron?"

"I just told you. When she broke up with me."

"No. You called me Kim. When you found me, you called me Kim." She looked at her hands, Adrena Lynn's hands. "How did you know I was in this body?"

"I didn't see Kim Possible in Adrena Lynn's body. I saw you, Kim, the woman I love." It had actually been a wild guess, a shot in the dark, but if he had learned one thing from Kim, it was to play the hand you're dealt. "We all change. Things happen. We get old. Bodies change, but our souls stay the same. You're my soulmate, KP. I love you more than anything. That's how I knew you."

"That's beautiful, Ron." She snuggled closer. A minute passed in silence. "It was a wild guess, wasn't it?"

"Wild guess, yeah."

That afternoon he would again give her the ring, resized to fit. That afternoon she would again accept it.

* * *

As always, they were together, as they had been since the instant her stolen heart had stopped, her stolen breath had caught in her throat: Adrena Lynn and the demon that owned her, Akylbas, ruler of seven legions, Grand Duke of Transformations.

It spoke, and in its voice were babies in abattoirs, glass shards in ice cream cones, the despair of quicksand, the agony of acid. "Tell me, Adrena Lynn – who brought you to this?"

"Me," she gasped. "_Me_," she screamed. "I did it to myself. _To myself!_ Please, please don't hurt me any more. I've learned my lesson. All my fault. I understand. _I understand_!"

"Why do you think that matters? Life is for learning lessons. Hell is for regretting decisions. You have a lot of decisions to regret, Adrena Lynn. Enough to fill eternity."

Akylbas was a lesser demon – but like all its kind, from the lowliest temptation imp to the Satanic Majesty itself, it enjoyed a good laugh. This had been a hell of a joke.

It selected a tenterhook and went to work.


End file.
